Absorbent nonwoven products such as paper towels, tissues, diapers, and other similar products are designed to have desired levels of bulk, softness and strength. For example, in some tissue products, softness is enhanced by a topical additive composition such as a softening agent to the outer surface(s) of a tissue web. Such additive composition may be a bonding agent that is topically applied to a substrate, such as a nonwoven, alone or in combination with creping operations. Creping may be part of a nonwoven manufacturing process wherein tissue is adhered to the hot surface of a rotating dryer drum by an additive composition. The dried tissue and additive composition are together scraped off the dryer drum via a doctor blade assembly. Creping adds bulk to tissue base sheets which in turn, increases softness as determined by hand feel. Other properties are affected as well, such as strength, flexibility, crepe folds and the like. Typically, additive compositions may be sprayed onto the dryer drum of a Yankee dryer. However, the spraying process has low chemical mass efficiency levels (40% to 70%) due to waste of the additive composition caused by a boundary layer of air near the dryer's surface and relatively high dryer temperatures. By necessity, the applicator is typically about 4 inches (101.6 mm) away from the dryer surface. Due to the high rotational speed of the dryer, the boundary layer of air near the dryer surface is pulled along creating a pressure barrier that inhibits spray particles from reaching the dryer surface.
Further, modifying any additives to include additional solid particles and short fibers that improve the overall softness of a substrate is somewhat limited. Many additional particles that can enhance the final hand feel of a substrate require mixing into the dispersion that is sprayed onto the dryer. Because many of these particles are larger than the spray nozzles, clogging of the nozzles is an issue that prevents the additive dispersion from being properly applied onto the dryer surface. Thus, a need exists for a method of applying an additive composition alone or in combination with enhanced softening particles to a dryer surface and eventually a substrate in order to provide a substrate that has improved softness.